If you've been following this blog, you know that from the beginning I promised not to make this a dumping ground for my anger. I agreed not to write about the other people, and events, involved in the breakup of my marriage. I made these commitments partly just because it's the decent, proper way to behave in public, partly to protect my kids from any blowback, and partly because a certain, specific person asked me to do so. But as the ugly events keep unfolding, it gets harder and harder to stay on the high road.
I'm sure you've all been there, whether you've gone through a bad breakup or not. In the workplace, in family squabbles, in arguments with friends...not every relationship is destined to stay happy and functional forever.
What follows is at least partly reflective of my current reality, and some of it may be reflective of past experiences having nothing to do with the people in the current situation, but I'm not going to say what's current (versus past), or what's reality (versus rhetoric).
Does continuing to act honorably when other people aren't doing likewise make me good person, or just a doormat? I don't know anymore.
At the start of the incident, whatever it may be, you tell yourself you will not resort to namecalling. You're not that kind of person, and you don't want to say anything in anger you'll regret later. Even if on some level, you would absolutely love to see the other person wounded as deeply as they've* wounded you, you know you'll feel bad about yourself later if you give in to that impulse. Then the other person starts calling you names. And you feel defenseless.
Still, you hang in there. You remind yourself that staying strong is something you're doing for you, regardless of what the other person does. You tell yourself that while in your darkest, most hurting moments you may have wished the other person could just disappear, you know you don't really want harm to befall the other person and it would be very wrong to express those dark, thankfully transient thoughts aloud. Then the other person starts expressing their dark, and apparently not-so-transient thoughts aloud. To your face. And you feel like the victim of an assault who isn't even trying to fight back. You know you don't deserve to be treated this way, but feel that short of going back on your promises to yourself, there's nothing you can do to stop it.
Nevertheless, you do not respond in kind. You tell yourself that even though you know this person very well, and it would be very easy for you to dredge up all sorts of things to hurt and humiliate the other person, you must not do it. Secrets told and embarrassing experiences endured under the bonds of family, friendship, or even just professional courtesy are never to be used against a person who trusted you with them at the time. Maybe even more importantly, such things are never to be shared with others. And then the other person starts dredging and sharing with a vengeance. And you start to question the rationality of keeping confidences when the other person isn't.
Even so, you control yourself. You tell yourself that even if the other person has said or done things that pretty much amount to a scorched-Earth campaign where your life and self-esteem are concerned, it doesn't mean you're entitled to do the same in return. Oh, there are things you could do, or things you could say in certain circles, that would ruin the other person professionally, legally, socially, emotionally or otherwise, but you don't.
Yet the other person has zero gratitude for your consideration, and repays your kindness with more cruelty. The other person acts as if you have done and said all the terrible things you haven't, and seems to feel righteous in lashing out at you. The other person claims to have the moral high ground, and you're so (figuratively) bloodied, exhausted, confused, and filled with self-doubt that you have to keep taking reality checks with friends and family to verify the truth of the situation.
You start to feel like someone who's getting up at dawn every day to: bake a pie from scratch, hand-deliver it to someone piping hot, let the other person throw the scalding pie in your face, and go to bed early so you can get up the next day and repeat the process all over again. I never thought of myself as the type of person who would allow herself to be treated poorly, yet lately I'm more or less volunteering for it.
If what I'm doing is good, why do I feel so bad? If playing by the rules is its own reward, why does it feel like a punishment?
*I realize this use of "they" or its variant is grammatically incorrect, but I'm trying to avoid using gender-specific prounouns in this post; I feel that using the typical "he or she" construct would be awkward here, and would only draw more attention to my avoidance of those pronouns
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First of all I wish you all the best with your treatments. Secondly I think that as hard as it may be you will be glad, down the road, that you did take the high road though I can't imagine how difficult that might be with all that you have stated above. I believe when all is said and done your children will gain from this. Eleanor Roosevelt said "No one can make me feel inferior without my consent." Don't give this person your consent.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I wish you the best of luck as you go through this horrible time.
ReplyDeleteAnd secondly, I commend you for taking the high road, even though I'm sure it's killing you to hold back. I know of a divorced couple in my community, just acquaintances, and every time I run into the ex-wife she talks trash about her former spouse. Whenever I see him, he'll mention the kids or whatever, but never say a bad word about her. He may well be everything his ex-wife says he is, but I tend to discount it, since he conducts himself so well and doesn't stoop to her level. Trust me, people know there are two sides to every story and the way you conduct yourself speaks volumes.
I hope you feel better soon.
Stand up for your legal and financial rights, but take the high road in every way possible, no matter what anyone else says. Right now,your children love you both and are very hurt and confused. Anything you say about one another can get back to them. Someday, they will understand more of what they're seeing and hearing now and will decide how to regard each of you based on what they're observing. Your restraint will bear fruit.
ReplyDeleteI've been following your blog for awhile, after my brother told me about your indie publishing book.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult who's been through a divorce (my parents'), who had to listen to a lot of bad mouthing by one parent against another...I can tell you that your kids WILL realize the truth eventually, and it WILL permanently damage the relationship your kids have with your ex, as they begin to view him as pathetic and bitter.
I don't know how old your kids are now, and they may be too young to feel that they can stand up for themselves, or for you, or that doing so at this point will be "taking sides", or make the other side angry, but in our case, we both finally told the erring parent to shut about the other one. It was a freeing experience.
If your kids are reading this, take my advice - pay attention to WHO is bad mouthing, because whether it's your father, his friends or family, or former friends who have taken his side, realize that they're doing it only to justify THEIR lack of character. Regardless of her flaws, real or imagined, ask yourselves if a man of character leaves a wife who's battling cancer. And a woman who wants a man like that deserves what she will eventually get.
No one's perfect, in a marriage or in anything else, and both sides will always have grievances, but your dad has no right to try to destroy your mother. YOU are part of her, and he's hurting you more than he knows, (or cares about). Remind yourselves that HE chose to marry her, and have children with her, and if she's so completely terrible, his taste is in question.
Imagine being lied about in school, and feeling justified in defending yourself, to students who may or may not even care about you. Now imagine being lied about to the people you love most in the world (your children), and having to resist defending yourself, not for your sake, but for THEIRS. Think about it. I wish you all well.
And one more thing...if you're the soon-to-be ex reading this, cut the crap! Your kids can see through it, even if they don't say so now, and since your new chick has no character (or she wouldn't want a man who could do what you've done), she will undoubtedly leave you someday for someone more interesting (or healthy), and the kids you've alienated will not be there for you.
ReplyDeleteBy the time you get your priorities in order, it will be too late.
You've already gotten good advise...keep taking the high road. I remember when my soon-to-be-ex told me, "What goes around, comes around." I smiled and said, "I hope so." And it did...
ReplyDeleteYou're doing the right thing for you and your kids...keep the faith!!
Thanks for the encouragement & support; much of the time I feel very isolated and alone in this, even though I know I'm not, *really*. It's just so hard to keep your head on straight when so much that you thought would never change simply vaporizes before your eyes.
ReplyDeleteAnd to the 'Anonymous' who posted this:
"Imagine being lied about in school, and feeling justified in defending yourself, to students who may or may not even care about you. Now imagine being lied about to the people you love most in the world (your children), and having to resist defending yourself, not for your sake, but for THEIRS."
Here's my response - in keeping with the schoolyard motif - and not necessarily apropos of anything in particular -
Imagine your best friend since Kindergarten suddenly dropping you like a hot rock when the two of you are sophomores in college together. Nearly twenty years of being best friends, confidantes and partners, gone; just like that. Now imagine that friend has an excellent reputation at your school, everyone thinks she's one of the most caring, honorable, compassionate and self-sacrificing people they know. You used to think that, too.
In the weeks and months after dumping you, when no one else is around, she says the most awful things imaginable to you. Things that seem engineered for maximum damage to your self-esteem. She calls you names, she recasts past, happy experiences the two of you shared as nothing more than fakery on her part. She knows all your weak spots and hits every single one, repeatedly. She compares you unfavorably to her new circle of friends.
But no one else knows about it. To everyone else at your school, all your friend did was decide to end the friendship. Sad for you maybe, but hey, these things happen. It doesn't make your ex-friend a bad person. And you think that if only they *knew*, if only they could *hear* the horrible, hateful things she says when they're not around...they'd have a very different opinion of the situation---and of *her*.
But since you're supposed to be taking the high road, you say nothing. You allow them to continue to think very highly of this person whom you *now* know to be someone entirely different. You allow them to think *you* are the one who's overreacting and making the situation more difficult than it needs to be, because after all, that wonderful ex-friend of yours would *never* behave in a way that's anything less than kind and sensitive...as far as they know.
You are always in my thoughts. And I hope that when this 'person' is cruel to your face you at the very lest tell them that what they have done and said in leaving you has thus negated any weight or worth anything they say has for you. April, just keep doing what you know is best for yourself and your children, in doing that you can never go wrong. And again, you are always in my thoughts and a source of personal strength for me.
ReplyDeleteAt some point any person you know well enough will know how to push some of your buttons. If a person is someone you share(d) a long, intimate history with, they will probably know how to push ALL of your buttons. (And everybody has buttons that can be pushed. Gandhi had buttons. Buddha spent his whole life trying to get away from his buttons.)
ReplyDeleteButton attacks can be direct, indirect, passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and -- maddeningly -- so closely defined by a specific relationship as to be all but invisible to anyone but the two people involved.
If you're a decent sort this subtlety makes you wonder if you're really being attacked, or just being overly sensitive. Which is, of course, what the person attacking you in subtle ways wants you to feel. Not only do they get to beat you up, but they get you participate in your own beating.
The upshot here is that you're being exposed to emotional toxicity, and the only way to make that stop is to stop the exposure. That's not always realistic, but it is always true. You can't control what anyone else does or says, and when the heat's on you can't always control what you say.
What you can try to maintain are your own personal standards and personal boundaries.
As to what other people think, it doesn't matter. We all really only have a few close friends who will be there when it counts, and you're living one of those moments when it counts. Be thankful for those who support you for being you. Ignore everyone else.
I just came upon this site and find it refreshingly meaningful. April, you're one dynamic person. A wise woman who stops the exposure and heads forward like you're doing.
ReplyDelete